Projecting southwards from the central landmass, of which its northern areas form a part, is another southern continent, now called Southern Continent I. (The Isolated Southern Continent is Southern Continent II. ) Southern Continent I has sometimes been considered by geographers as part of the main landmass, since its northern parts been so influenced by the easy migrations to and from every part of the main landmass. But the southern parts have on the whole had such a different history that they are more usually classed a different and separate continent. We, Sirius, were allotted in the share-out of Rohanda the southern continents, including the northern areas of S.C. I, and any islands large and small in the oceans that we felt inclined to make use of.
More has to be said about the Conference itself.
It was considered a success. Remarkably so. Even though it was only one of very many conferences and discussions about the situations of a large number of Colonised Planets whose problems, in one or another, we shared, everybody taking part felt that it marked a new level in co-operation. And the further it receded into the past, the more we all able to see it had been extraordinary, and this not because of the unexpectedly fortuitous new epoch on Rohanda. Committees, conferences, discussions followed one after another through the millennia: it was to that particular one, on Colony 10, we were always referring back, as if there had been some particular and unrepeatable spring of life and vigour there we had not been able to approach again. I am now going to say, with equal emphasis and confidence, that the Conference was a failure.